That's Me In The Corner... - by fett
Duncan on 12/4/2010 at 03:41
As Forrest Gump once said when asked if he had 'found Jesus?', "I didn't know we were supposed to be looking for him".
Do not concern yourself with loss of faith. You are a good person and we all see it. Just enjoy your life without hurting or being a dick to others and the rest will take care of itself.
Or just stick it in her pooper. Either one.
Queue on 12/4/2010 at 03:46
I'll vote for pooper anyday.
Vivian on 12/4/2010 at 14:16
Uh.... april fools?
witherflower on 12/4/2010 at 15:37
Thanks for sharing... I think this line summed it up beautifuly: "I can honestly say that the sky is a deeper blue and the leaves are a deeper green because I'm actually looking AT them instead of BEHIND them". That's what it's all about.
My best wishes for you and your family.
june gloom on 12/4/2010 at 18:21
Preach it brother. Your description of apatheism very much mirrors mine. I'm 27, and it's taken me most of my life to reach the point I am at now. Even while growing up with a very Christian mother (and a father who was only Christian when it suited his purpouses or jibed with his misogyny) I had never really understood a lot of the ritual that goes into religion. I always felt silly when mom would ask me questions like "do you believe?" Mom loves to cite little incidents as "miracles" that proved the existence of God, but while at the time I marched in lockstep about it, now I'm not so sure about most of them. (Granted, the story from when I was three about my concussion/possible brain damage that went away overnight and blew several doctors' minds I have no answer for, but then I'm not a biologist. There's a few other incidents like that I have no explanation for, but that's neither here or there.)
In my teenage years I stopped following everything mom said about religion to the letter no matter how silly I felt. Mom never noticed, probably because she was too busy dealing with the fallout from a very nasty divorce- a divorce, I should add, that was the foundation for my belief that marriage as an institution is bullshit- and because she was too busy dealing with me being a defiant little shit that chafed under rules and authority and just wanted to be left alone and who was eventually kicked out of a vocational program for constantly getting into it with the teacher, who in my defense was a bit of a walking Godwin magnet.
As I got older my beliefs changed with the wind. One day I was an agnostic, the next I was a theist, then I decided I was an agnostic theist (I didn't know if there was a God but I chose to err on the side of caution.) My life at the time was fairly tulmultous, and I was just too busy with college, work, every day issues, bullshit my dad was pulling, and the copious amounts of "me time" that I needed to even function. Everything was a hassle and with me focused on all that, I no longer had time for religion. And then it hit me- that didn't bother me at all! Because I realized that I don't really believe it matters if God is out there or not, the end result is the same. So I thought, who gives a shit then? My time could be better focused on getting out of college and finally getting my degree.
CCCToad on 12/4/2010 at 19:04
Quote:
The fact that the Church is full of people that don't change can be attributed to each and every individual's freewill to pursue that change, or rather their failure to do so. My problem is with the hundreds of people who've sat across from me over the years weeping and grinding their teeth because they sought and enacted Biblical prescription for change to no avail.
Thats somewhat inconsistent with my own experiences with religion, but reading your post I can see that its somewhat of a cultural thing. None of the churches I've attended have had simply waiting for god as a final solution. That said, I have observed that attitude quite a bit in acquaintances on account of growing up in the deep south. The ultimate responsibility for making the changes and living in accordance with the Christian moral lies with you. Yes, you can pray to god to help your resolve to stop whatever your vice is, you can ask other believers (including deceased) to pray for you, but none of that is going to do any good unless you yourself are actively committed to making the improvements and are doing everything in your power. For example, my current pastor recently was talking about the topic of addiction, and his lecture wasn't "God will take care of it for you". His message was that getting out of such deeply entrenched sin requires a massive committment, and in such a case doing god's will requires us to go above beyond the normal efforts: pray, remind yourself of why you need to do it, and avoid even any "occassions of sin"(ie, situations that cause you to be tempted), and use your peer network.
Anyway, a little prayer really doesn't hurt anybody. Even if it turns out there isn't a God, its got a value similiar to meditation.
fett on 12/4/2010 at 20:38
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Thats somewhat inconsistent with my own experiences with religion, but reading your post I can see that its somewhat of a cultural thing.
Quote Posted by fett
Now you may argue that I was just with a bad group of people, but this is an abbreviated story. Before I landed at Calvary Chapel for those last years, I had interacted with pretty much every denomination, including a foray into the Catholic Church, and every economic class in about ten different states. I'd been with believers in Israel, Italy, Germany, Latvia, Thailand, Sudan, and Nigeria. Upon close examination the same thing was true.
Quote Posted by CCCToad
His message was that getting out of such deeply entrenched sin requires a massive committment, and in such a case doing god's will requires us to go above beyond the normal efforts: pray, remind yourself of why you need to do it, and avoid even any "occassions of sin"(ie, situations that cause you to be tempted), and use your peer network.
I disagree. I have witnessed numerous occasions where non-believing individuals have stopped drinking or smoking habitually overnight. It's not that they weren't tempted to start again, they just simply resolved not to and that was that. It wasn't complicated with prayer, 12-step programs, or accountability to a group. Cold turkey. Let me translate this from pastorese to laymanese:
"Holy shit, I thought the Bible and prayer really WOULD change these folks and help them, but it's doing fuck all and they're starting to blame me. I'm going to pass them off to "peer networks" and put the responsibility back on them before they realize this is all a dog and pony show. I've got a mortgage payment to make after all."He may not even realize that's what he's saying, but it is, because pastor's say it all the time to each other. Oftentimes at conventions and retreats where the older ones teach the younger ones how to keep their jobs without people seeing through the smoke and mirrors.
I have never, let me stress, NEVER seen a single Christian who stopped abusing successful overnight. I'm sure they're out there, but I never saw it happen. Obviously non-believers also fall back into addictions just as easily as believers - some people just don't have the resolve no matter what. But the success rate for kicking addiction is pretty much the same in and out of the Church, despite the fact that one group is promised by the God they believe in to supernaturally aid them in deliverance from such things. In fact the stats for divorce, adultery, suicide and various types of abuse are about the same for the Church as the rest of society, even a little higher in some areas of the U.S.
This brings me back to the core and origin of my doubt: Why is no one changed? Why is it the same for both groups? Where is the Holy Spirit who should supernaturally empower people to change? I take into account freewill - I'm not talking about people who choose their sin, I'm talking about those who desperately and fervently try to escape it and simply can't, no matter what they do. The only thing the Church/Bible can do for those poor souls is to point the finger back at them - it must be their fault. They didn't do XYZ or didn't do it enough or in the right order. God has given them a "thorn of the flesh," or a "trial" and therefore won't deliver them right now. At the end of the day, the message is the same - "This is your fault." My fault that I'm human? My fault that my penis works normally? My fault that I want my neighbors house/car/tv? My fault that I get angry, scared, or impatient due to a physiological response system that I have absolutely no control over?
See, the system works great for people who have enough self-resolve to defeat their temptations and overcome their "sin." But I suspect they would have done it with or without prayer, because their environment and DNA made them so. The poor saps who aren't wired that way spend a lifetime supplicating to God, seeking help and receiving silence or even scorn, due to a biological or physiological urge that they simply cannot control. They are the "pots made for shameful purposes" who must not ask the Creator, "why have you made me thus?"
Must suck to be one of those guys, huh?
Harvester on 12/4/2010 at 20:55
I'm not going to discard your experiences because you have taught many people and met many Christians, if you say you haven't observed that their faith changed them for the better that's really saying something and I'm not going to say it's not true. As I've already said you've given me much to think about.
But my personal experience is that I can say that I
have changed for the better since I started taking my faith seriously. I quit smoking cold turkey, quit drinking too much, became less hateful and more loving of other people, quit lying and making myself appear better than I really was, and became more prepared to make personal sacrifices for the cause of God. But this didn't happen in some dramatic
'after some powerful prayer, I felt a sudden change in me, I knew I now had the power to stop sinning' kind of way, rather it happened slowly (sometimes frustratingly slowly) and gradually. But change nonetheless. Does it always have to be a sudden, dramatic, obviously supernatural kind of change, or can God also work His way with people in a less obvious way? Would all this also have been possible through my own hard work alone instead of with help from God? I guess it would be, but I doubt I would have had the motivation to change if it weren't for my faith.
Am I a good person now? Not really, I still see a lot of filth inside myself, but I'm better than I used to be and I doubt I would have changed this much if my faith hadn't motivated me.
EDIT:
Quote:
Yet I was exactly the same person as when I was 13, on the day I woke up with the urge to go to church. Why wasn't I changed? Why wasn't I more Christlike? Did I need to be? Wasn't I, as the person my parents raised me to be, more selfless and compassionate than most of the Christians I'd been around?
Well, maybe if you were already more selfless and compassionate than most Christians, maybe you didn't need to change that much, maybe you already were a good person to begin with (though Christian theology states that no one is really a good person) and were already very Christlike. But I can state that
I, and many others, did and do need to change and become more Christlike, because we were/are not very good persons at all.
fett on 12/4/2010 at 21:16
I don't dispute that people can change - and more power to you, Harvester, if Christianity has inspired you to do it. One of the reasons I've not "come out" more publicly is because I have no desire to destroy anyone else's faith, especially those who live nominally happy lives as a result of it. I additionally don't want to cause undo anxiety or sadness in any of the people who were "saved" through the ministry I was involved in. If I could selectively approach them and tell them, or encourage them to look for strength and answers in themselves, I would, but word of that would spread quickly and cause more hurt than help in the end. I spent a few years weeping over graves and trying to talk to some some who were institutionalized, but that penance did neither they nor me any good. All I can say is that if it works for you, great. But if you find yourself continually struggling with the same thing or wondering why you even bother with prayer, I encourage you to try to step outside of the bubble of belief and try to see it objectively. Maybe everything will look fine to you, but you seem honest enough to make a good judgment call when/if that day comes. :)
Enchantermon on 12/4/2010 at 21:19
Quote Posted by fett
This brings me back to the core and origin of my doubt: Why is no one changed? Why is it the same for both groups? Where is the Holy Spirit who should supernaturally empower people to change? I take into account freewill - I'm not talking about people who choose their sin, I'm talking about those who desperately and fervently try to escape it and simply can't, no matter what they do. The only thing the Church/Bible can do for those poor souls is to point the finger back at them - it must be their fault. They didn't do XYZ or didn't do it enough or in the right order. God has given them a "thorn of the flesh," or a "trial" and therefore won't deliver them right now. At the end of the day, the message is the same - "This is your fault." My fault that I'm human? My fault that my penis works normally? My fault that I want my neighbors house/car/tv? My fault that I get angry, scared, or impatient due to a physiological response system that I have absolutely no control over?
Jesus never promised that following Him would be all roses and butterflies. We all have our struggles and our sins. Some we can escape on our own and some we can't. Some God may choose not to deliver us from, even if we ask Him to do so. If this is the case, the response shouldn't be to turn our backs on God, but to accept His decision and continue doing our best to avoid the sin.
I don't think it's always right for the church to point the blame back at the person. Sometimes, it may be the person's fault, but other times it may not. If a Christian has a drinking problem, for example, and is doing everything he can to keep himself from turning to it but still slips sometimes, if his heart is truly right (and this is something no one can judge but himself and God alone), then the only problem is that he is human and has a disposition towards drinking. If he's doing everything in his power to restrain himself, it's no longer his fault, and God will take that and his attitude into account at Judgement. Again, though, the only one who can truly judge the man's heart, apart from himself, is God alone; the church should never sit and point fingers, because in the end, they don't know his heart. God does.
